


wander (right into another soul)

by rarmaster



Series: (who's gonna) Save the World [4]
Category: Kingdom Hearts, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Genre: Gen, Save the World crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 12:38:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8845420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: Part of the Save the World Crossover. There are rips in the time-space continuum, and these kids gotta try and survive (and, maybe put a stop to it).
Aqua's been wandering for a while through worlds she doesn't recognize. In one of them, she stumbles on a boy. He's a little cheeky, but hey, the company would be nice. (Or: Team D meets.)





	

Aqua had been wandering for a while now. She was not sure how long—her sense of time was not what it had used to be—but it had been at least a few days, she’d wager. She wasn’t home, anymore. She wasn’t in any world she recognized.

Waking up in a world that was not home had not been pleasant. And neither had been discovering she couldn’t open a path to the Lanes Between no matter how hard she tried. But she knew staying in one spot would do her no good.

So she wandered.

It turned out for the best, in the end, in a way. She found that there were portals between worlds that kept opening up. She’d walk through one on accident more often than not, but at least she was going _somewhere._ She just wished she recognized any of the worlds she’d been through (she didn’t).

This time, when she stepped through a portal, it let her out into a battleground.

Aqua summoned her Keyblade to her ((even after all this time, it was still a relief to have Rainfell come, to feel it in the palm of her hand and not Master Keeper)). The enemies scattered around this ruined town looked like… Heartless.

Except, they weren’t like Heartless at all.

They had a darkness about them that still grated against her skin, and they were all a dark and inky black, but they moved like no Heartless she knew. It was like they were made of some sort of ink, or a dark goo. They flowed and squished from one spot to another, dripping goo as they went. They had no eyes, either. And they were all awfully small.

Perhaps, though, Aqua realized, as she studied them longer.

Perhaps it was because these were not what the creatures—whatever they were—were supposed to look like. The goo splattered the ground in such a way that looked more like it had been scattered this way. Like something larger had been smashed to pieces. It was only the larger chunks of goo that were doing anything that wasn’t just bubbling aimlessly, after all.

So someone had been through here.

Someone had been fighting these creatures.

But…

A sound reached her ears, and Aqua turned in its direction. It was the sound of fighting. The familiar grunts and cries of someone swept up in battle, exerting their voice as much as their body.

“Hup! _Hyaaah_!”

A boy’s voice. Young.

Aqua moved in his direction.

The dark goop got larger and larger, the closer she moved. Soon enough she was faced with globs of it large enough to actually be considered creatures, with flowing and dripping shapes, actually moving to attack her. She destroyed one with Firaga. Cast Thundaga Shot the other direction to take out a group.

And then there was the boy.

He _was_ young, she saw, dressed primarily in green. He looked too young to be fighting, honestly, though he did have a sword his size in one hand and a metal shield in the other. He cleaved through the goo-creatures with relative ease, sending them splattering in exactly the way Aqua had predicted.

But he was surrounded, too. And there were a lot of those goo-creatures.

Aqua moved swiftly, bringing a chunk of ice up out of the ground with a sweep of her blade, scatting the creatures on one side of him. This made him turn to her, and at the sight of her he broke into a grin.

“Hey! You here to help?”

“Yes,” she said. “Focus!”

He shrugged like he didn’t really see the need for that, but: “Alright, sure!”

There was not really time to pay any more explicit attention to him, except to make sure she didn’t hit him with any of her spells. But soon enough all the goo-creatures were cut down to size, and the only remnants of them were dark patches that stuck to the ground.

“Are you alright?” Aqua asked, turning to her new companion. He must have been fighting a while before she’d arrived here, and he _was_ awfully young…

The boy must have read more in her tone than she’d intended to convey, because his expression quickly turned sour.

“Aw, c’mon, lady,” he said, with a pout that easily rivaled Ven’s on his worst days. “You think I’d carry this thing if I didn’t know how to use it?” He held his sword up accusingly.

Aqua had the grace to at least look apologetic. “You’re just… awfully young.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah? Watch this.” He slung his shield onto his back, and then gripped his sword in both hands. He stood very still a moment, in a stance Aqua recognized as balanced, even. And then he moved.

He stepped forward and swung his blade through the air, and kept moving. His feet danced across the ground with the grace and confidence of someone who’d been doing this for years. He moved with a fluidity that even Sora, she thought, might have trouble rivaling.

And he can’t have been more than twelve.

Aqua took a deep breath as he slowed, returning his sword to the sheath on his back with a flourish. He grinned at her, eyes daring her to say something.

Young or no, there was no doubting he knew his way around swordplay.

“Alright,” she said. “I guess I underestimated you.”

That would be what he wanted to hear, after all. And she supposed, when it came down to it, she and Terra had both been younger than that when they’d started their training. Not that they’d been anywhere near as _good_ , but…

He grinned even wider, and then looked her up and down.

“Hey, I saw you casting magic, right?” he asked.

Aqua nodded.

Suddenly he beamed, like, well. Like a little kid.

“Oh, that’s so cool!! I used to know magic…” He trailed off there, a wistful note in his voice, his eyes a little distant.

“Used to?” Aqua asked. She didn’t realize magic was something you could _forget_. And, being his age, it seemed unlikely he would have had time to…

“Oh! Uh.” The boy stopped there, his face scrunching up. “It’s, um… really, _really_ complicated,” he said. He looked a little nervous about something. “Don’t, uh, worry about it?”

Aqua shrugged. She saw no need in making him uncomfortable by pressing.

“Alright.”

“Hey uh, what about that sword you’ve got there?” he asked, leaning a little as if trying to get a better look at it. “I’ve seen all sorts of weapons, but I’ve never seen one like _that_ before!”

“This?”

Aqua held it up for him, so he could see it better. He nodded, and took a step closer, peering at it.

“It’s called a Keyblade,” she told him. “You have to be specially chosen by the blade to be able to wield it, and its appearance reflects a person’s heart, so no two Keyblades look the same.” She looked him over, and deciding the joke wouldn’t hurt, tacked on: “It’s… kind of just a fancy magic sword, though.” She laughed a little.

He did too. “That’s super cool though— _oh!_ ” He jolted in surprise, as she banished it. “Guess you weren’t kidding when you said it was magic!”

Aqua smiled.

“Anyway, my name’s Link!” the boy said, thumping at his chest. “I come from Hyrule. I mean, the Kokiri woods, technically, but… I doubt you live anywhere near Hyrule, so you wouldn’t know??”

Aqua shook her head. She didn’t even know of a world named Hyrule.

“Where are you from, then? OH, and, what’s your name?” Link asked.

“Aqua,” Aqua said. She thought for a moment about listing her homeworld, where her family was but… no, she hadn’t _lived_ there in years. And, if Link was more likely to recognize the name of any world, it would be: “I’m from Radiant Garden.”

“Radiant Garden?” Link said, face scrunching up a little. He shook his head. “Nope, never heard of it! I knew you weren’t from anywhere around Hyrule.”

Aqua couldn’t help but laugh, a little. “No, I’m definitely not. I’ve never heard of Hyrule, myself…”

Link sighed, scratching at his head and kicking at the ground. “Man… sure is crazy with all these worlds mashing together, isn’t it?”

Aqua blinked.

“You… know about other worlds?” she asked, taken by surprise.

Link looked up at her like he didn’t quite understand.

“I mean, I know about Termina,” he said. “And I’ve… been to like a million different places ever since these portals started showing up. None of ‘em look like Hyrule, so they’ve gotta be like, other worlds, right? Guess they could be different parts of the planet or something, but I don’t think the planet’s _that_ big…”

“No, I meant…” Aqua began, but… No. Maybe it wasn’t worth explaining. She shook her head. “Never mind.”

She looked around and cleared her throat. This area seemed to be clear of those dark blob monsters, and the only thing to do from here was keep walking, and hope they found another portal.

“Perhaps… we should stick together?” she suggested. When Link started to give her that scowl—no doubt ready to complain about her treating him like a kid again—she added: “There _is_ strength in numbers, after all. And the company would be nice.”

Link thought that over, his face relaxing a little. Finally he nodded to himself, like he really thought that was a good idea.

“Yeah, it would be nice,” he said. “Gets lonely talking to yourself. You gotta preference for which way we head? I came from that way.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“I came from that way,” Aqua said, gesturing in the opposite direction. “There’s nothing interesting back there, so…”

She thought about it, looking to her right and her left. Neither way looked particularly interesting, but she felt a stronger presence of darkness coming from her left—more of these monsters, likely. She wouldn’t mind fighting them, if she had to, and maybe she _should,_ but…

“This way,” Aqua said, pointing to her right. Then she looked down at Link, cocking her head a little. “If that’s alright?”

Link nodded.

“Yeah! I’m cool with that.”

Aqua smiled, and bowed a little, gesturing for him to go first. “After you,” she told him.

Link grinned cheekily. Head high, he led the way.

Aqua watched him for a second, smiling fondly. She got the feeling she was going to enjoy his company a lot. He seemed like a nice kid, and not being left completely alone with her thoughts would be a blessing. Confident, she followed after him.

 


End file.
